Michael Walli with supporters during street theater in downtown Knoxville before the beginning of the Transform Now Plowshares trial. May 6, 2013. Photo by Felice Cohen-Joppa

ELEVATING THE HOST

Four times our corners of ninety
The circle of charity embracing all
Is unbroken with 360
In leap year take a mind leap
Make your election sure
To the House of Bread
Christmas comes full circle
When our foursquare
New Jerusalem comes down from Heaven
Santa Maria sank at Christmas
In the depths of humility Her Soul
Magnified the Glory of The Lord
Who casts down the mighty
From their thrones
And exalts the lowly
She never went back to the Old World
She chastises not a born again Scrooge
She abides at the Cross
Christopher Patron Saint of Travelers
Advises orientation with the Lord on High
The Age of Immaculate Mary
Who has no history of sin
Jesus makes all things new
For all the mystical body
A new Christmas Carol
Where Justice and Equity and Peace abide
Anchored in Santa Fe
The Precioso Sangre de Christo
Points directly to
Our open Heart with a Trail of Blood
The Truth shall set you free
From all that opposes itself
To the Will of God
In human affairs
Colorado River water is used up
Holy water – baptisms in blood
Before it reaches the sea
Forsake Babylon – Come to Jesus
Do everything He tells you
Mary exercised Her suffrage
Therefore is our color red
Guilty! Guilty!
We tramp upon the mystic deep
Fiscal red ink – capitalist crucifixion
The immaculate snows of
The Mount of The Holy Cross
Rest upon a sea of blood
Therefore is our color red
We tramp upon the mystic deep
With faltering Peter
Thru the sweaty exertions of faithfulness
The salt of the sweat
The salt of the sea
The salt of the Faith
Everlasting preservation
Without sacrifice there is no love
Never forget that come what may
Who does God’s Work shall get God’s pay
Many saints have been squeezed info sanctity
Thru the pinch of poverty
The Cross upon the Mountain
Upon the land upon the Blood
Receive the dew of Heaven
Regenerative water at The Root
Climb Calvary – Meet the Bridegroom
The Cross your real estate
E Pluribus Unum – That all may be One
As they are One – Out of Many One
E Mariae Unum – Out of Mary One
Jesus the Sun of Justice
Rises upon the table of the morning
Mary the Moon Clothed with the Sun
The Mirror of Justice
Calls all on Earth to alignment
With the dictates of justice
In the line of totality
And the rigors of orthodoxy
Dine at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb
Be the leaven for the rising
Of the Son Who is the Bread
The Cross upon the Blood
Upon the mountains upon the lands
Gives a Floodtide of redemption
And the Blood of the Agony
Becomes the Wine of Joy.

[Michael Walli is one of the three Transform Now Plowshares disarmament activists. They are all currently in jail in Ocilla, Georgia, and scheduled for sentencing in Knoxville, Tennessee on September 30.]